Tilly Greenway & the Secrets of the Ancient Keys book series

Myth and Magic – Fact or Fiction?

Silbury Hill features in Watchers as a place where dragons slumber....

I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that so many myths and legends (and the lore within them) are similar in different countries. Take the story of the Deluge and the Flood. This tale is repeated in pretty much every continent. Huge rains are on the way. God tells one of the humans to build an ark, which he does. He and his family then escape the ensuing flood, whilst the rest of mankind is drowned. In the bible the human is Noah, in older texts he is Ziusudra: but the tale is almost identical. It seems unlikely that such a wide-spread story is just a myth. Far more likely that it records an actual event.

The tale of Tilly Greenway and the Secrets of the Ancient Keys also begins with a flood-warning, but this flood is not a real one. It is part of an orchestrated plan by those in power to micro-chip the population. Is such a plan pure fantasy? Perhaps, but the possibility is there, which is why it kicks off our tale.

Magic and myth are interwoven with the real world throughout the Tilly Greenway saga. Although many of the characters might have stepped from the pages of fantasy (such as Herne or the Dragons) the locations of the tale are all places you can find on a map. This was quite deliberate and, I hope, makes the books very different from other fantasies in which the reader travels through a wholly fictitious world.

Herne as he appears in the Tilly Greenway stories

I chose to write this way for several reasons. One is that I wanted to delve into the hidden history of our planet. In this way, the stories form a true grail quest, an exploration of what has been going on in the real world (and still is) in order to keep us from finding out the truth about our past. There are some eyebrow-raising revelations to come…

Having said that, the books are not allegory. Like Tolkien, I am not a fan of allegory. I prefer history – both real and imagined. In order to give the tale authenticity I’ve created a history of our race that goes back well beyond the Ice Age (as you’ll discover in later books). For this I’ve used a combination of sources, including some of the Celtic poems (many of which were written in a deliberately obscure way in order to avoid being edited) and the tales told on Sumerian tablets some seven thousand years ago.

There are hundreds of thousands of these clay tablets, most of them yet to be translated. My guess is that, as with the Qumran scrolls, many will never see the light of day (not for public consumption anyway). An interesting fact is that the majority of them are/were buried in the sands of Iraq and Iran, so you can see how relevant to today our tale really is.

But the main reason for mixing fact with fiction and magic with reality is that I believe magic is very much alive; that the world we live in is just as fantastical and full of wonder as any that I might create. Getting out into nature (and way from the screens that encroach ever more closely on our lives!) is magic enough for me, which is why Tilly and Zack spend so much time “outdoors”.

Take this photo that one of my daughters took over the Easter weekend. I love it! So much beauty. So much mystery. Who knows, perhaps each droplet of water is a universe of its own, with countless tiny lives being played out within it?

And I wonder what was going through this ladybird’s mind as it scaled the huge peak of this old leaf…

I hoped too that some people might feel inspired to visit some of the locations that Tilly and Zack find themselves in during their quest. So you can imagine how pleased I was to hear recently from a reader who had taken his sons to see Silbury Hill and the Avebury Stones after they had read Watchers.

Avebury Stones

Another wrote to me to say that she had climbed Glastonbury Tor and visited the Chalice Well Gardens because she had had enjoyed Tilly’s adventures so much. Wonderful!

The Chalice Well Gardens

The Vesica Pisces pool in the Chalice Well Gardens

Why does visiting such places make a difference? Well, for me, seeing them, smelling them, reaching out to touch them means that we re-connect with all they have to offer us, each one with its unique atmosphere, all of them with secrets that they whisper to us from across the long years.

They connect us with our past, inform our present and help us look to the future too. Wrapped in the mystery of myth and legend, they are very real gateways to knowing just a little bit more of the real magic that weaves its way through the world around us…

Next time, we’ll visit Skenfrith Castle, another of the real-life locations in our tale!

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4 thoughts on “Myth and Magic – Fact or Fiction?”

I love that you’re stories are based so much on the world’s history, Celtic myths, folklore and modern day mysteries, weaving them all together into such a magical compelling tale. I am such a fan of history and legends myself. I guess that’s why I am enjoying Tilly so much!

The picture your daughters took is fantastic with the bubbles and droplets of water suspended on the branches. They are quite the photographers!

It must be wonderful for you to have people tell you they have visited the locations mentioned in your books. I’m a little jealous that I haven’t been there myself, yet. 🙂

Glad to hear you’re enjoying Tilly! I’m enjoying Withershins too! It really is fun hearing from people who have gone to some of the places in the book. Next weekend I’m off to Glastonbury to meet a young reader and her parents who are coming over from Australia on holidays…we’ll start at the George and Pilgrim and hopefully climb the Tor too!

Thanks, Christopher. Yes, it’s an interesting text, which I’ve delved into several times – and one of the earliest that we have, of the deluge. If you know any other interesting versions, do let me know. I’m always on the look-out for material that I haven’t come across yet! All the best, Essi.

Watchers 2017 Revised edition

The Hidden Hand

About Watchers

Described as Lord of the Rings meets Dan Brown and the X-Files, Watchers is the first book in epic fantasy series Tilly Greenway and the Secrets of the Ancient Keys

Tilly Greenway and her stepbrother Zack are plunged into an epic quest to save the world. The forces against them include an evil shadow organization, a sinister alien race and a world so busy fighting the War against Terror that it can’t see the real terror in its midst. Fighting with them are an ancient order of Guardians and a host of supposedly mythical creatures (including dragons!) who have returned to help the world in this final struggle of dark against light.

Our world…

“Our world is full of secrets. some have simply been forgotten or misplaced. Others have been deliberately hidden beneath layers of carefully – crafted deception. But the thing about secrets is that, no matter how deeply they have been buried, they cannot stay hidden forever.”

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